Multi-Media Book RR

Time flies, full of overworked employment, maternal obligations and rotten weather! In this span my laptop also got virus-ed on Friday the 13th. After a $100 trip to the PC Guy, I am clean, but my camera wasn't cooperating with said laptop...not able to download pics. My friend Jody spent an hour on my PC, from her home near Chicago, trying to get me ready to go. Seems my laptop does NOT like my camera, like the PC Guy told me! Now I have a card reader (learned something new today) that my SD card goes into to extract my pics. We bypassed the camera. So....now I can post a new pic! Thanks Jody for all your advice and time. What she knows about computers is like a foreign language to me.

I have been so excited to share my finished (almost) book from the RR I participated in with some of my most talented friends. When we were all together in Charlotte NC, we gave each book back to its owner...a reveal! I am so thrilled with mine! This is my cover. We each made our covers and back covers. It was to provide a direction for each person working on it. I included a slew of upholstery fabric samples, thanks to my friend Anne who gave me a treasure of books to work with. (I used a silk book to make my CQ purse). Each person used some of them in their pages.

Colleen worked her magic on this page. I had prepared canvas to be the substrate of each page and they could paint it the color of their choice. This page is a cool green, coupled with pink and this awesome beaded cabochon. Colleen makes gorgeous jewelry with these cabochons. I feel honored to have one in my book. The second pic is of the backside. She used a vintage apron and embroidery to complete her page. Colleen's aesthetic is similar to mine, so we are guaranteed to like what each of us do.

Nicki's pages began with a "friendship tree". I love how she used her favorite color (blue!) and  created this wonderful rendition of a tree. She dyes lace to sell on Etsie and you can see some of her lace bits here. Her reverse side uses a cool dyed  doilie and stitching, combined with some fabrics I included. Love these pages. Thanks Nick.

Denise has a very under-stated elegance to her designs. I loved her cover and back-side for her book.  She used a felting technique she learned at Quilt Market.  Her second side uses a wine cork cut into slices and stamped with the word "dasein" which means simply, to be alive, to be a being. Love these.

Jody was inspired to use the fabrics included in the box. I love the stamped bird (the bird thing...love it) and she incorporated Scrabble-like tiles since she knows I love the game! She used the leather-like bits to really come up with the perfect pages for my book. Thanks!

This is the back cover I made. I will gather my pages together with discounted bracelet chains I picked up at Michaels. This was the perfect combination of people and talents. We all worked well together. So well, we are gearing up to do an altered book RR. We have included our friend Charlyn in this round. It promises to be exciting! Altered books in entirely different. We will each start with a book...a real book... a book destined for nowhere. The front and back covers will be our starting point. Cannot wait!

My little art quilt group dabbled in a technique from Susan Carlson's book Serendipity Quilts. Using watered down glue and paint brush we glued bits of scraps to create a design. Our first attempts are very basic, but oh, so fun! I used a bag of scrap verbiage fabrics my friend Mary Ellen gave me a few years ago. It was truly soothing and relaxing just gluing bits to background fabric. I encourage you to get her books and try this out. Really fun!

I look forward to trying this technique out and making some fish from her first book, Free Style Quilts.

My body aches after another day of weeding and planting. I still have weeds waiting for me in the front garden. Tomorrow is another day! Can't wait to see the petunia's root and take off. Hope it fills in the front and all I have to do is deadhead the bunch.

I have quite a few projects in queue. First and foremost is a Nook cover. One of my favorites at work asked me to make a Nook cover for his dad for Father's Day. Ted actually found the emblem for his dad's Marine unit and emailed it to me. I copied it to fabric today...which was a trial and error. Some of the prepared sheets I have were affected by humidity and jammed my printer. I ended up using the canvas prepared fabric I bought at Office Max. It went through printer without jamming. I love the canvas and the emblem looks great. He asked for a red cover with emblem on front. After a plea to some quilty friends, Jody went out of her way to find me some Marine fabric at her Hobby Lobby in Chicago; mailed to me right away, received yesterday. The Marine fabric will be inside the Nook holder. I kind of came up with this myself based on a picture from a blog. It will incorporate triangle tabs that hold the Nook inside. Peltex will give it some rigidity. Thinking of elastic to keep it closed. Tomorrow will begin with me making this Nook cover happen!

I have also signed on to interpret this photo into a quilt of some sort. Hhhh.mmmm. So many idea's.

Michael is unofficially graduated from St John Fisher. He saved 3 credits for the Fall to return to play his last year of eligibility on the football team. The ceremony was held in Rochester May 9th. Kudos to Fisher for moving the ceremony swiftly along. 1000 graduates=2 hours.

I have learned:

1. So You Think You Can Dance started up this past Thursday. I have predicted  Melanie Moore will win. 
2. Really...Scotty? American Idol. Haley all the way.
3. D'onfrio returns. Criminal Intent. 
4. John Steinbeck's Travels with Charly is a quick read about Steinbeck's excursion with his poodle Charly in the early 60's. I looked a couple of times at the publication date. Some issues were still relevant  almost 40 years later. 
5. Cameron is gay. Melissa's future BIL. He's 18. Cam has known for a long time. Melissa let him be what he is. What a gift. 
6. Major Magic's memories. The pizza joint with games and animated life-sized animals singing songs. But it was all about the tickets! Tickets to "buy" a prize.